Toward a more effective use of the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation
Trevor I. Smith, Michael C. Wittmann
contact: Trevor.I.Smith@umit.maine.edu and wittmann@umit.maine.edu
(Submitted on 12 Nov 2007)
We suggest one redefinition of common clusters of questions used to analyze student responses on the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE). Our goal is to move beyond the expert/novice analysis of student learning based on pre-/post-testing and the correctness of responses (either on the overall test or on clusters of questions defined solely by content). We base our work in resource theory, taking special note of the context dependence of questions with seemingly similar physics content. We analyze clusters in ways that allow the most common incorrect answers to give as much, or more, information as the correctness of responses in that cluster. Using this dichotomy of correct and most common incorrect models (in clusters defined by common models) we can apply Model Analysis to help better map a class's thinking about the physics on the FMCE. We give one example of such an analysis as a proof-of-concept of our approach.
Comments: 13 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res
Subjects: Physics Education (physics.ed-ph)
Cite as: arXiv:0711.1838v1 [physics.ed-ph]
Submission history
[v1] Mon, 12 Nov 2007 18:11:32 GMT (250kb,D)
